Author: Diary of a Quitter
Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 3:33 pm
I think it’s foolish to believe ANYTHING if you don’t have a strong factual basis to ground your belief.
Time and time again I have seen people come to the forum and post that they are going to do a quick taper off of Suboxone because they just "know" that they are done with opiates forever, that they will never use again because of all they have been through witht their addiction, and that this time is going to be the time that they get it right. They just really, really, really want to be "free" of ALL drugs, event the one that’s responsible for them feeling ok right now. These people believe that they know themselves well enough to know that this time, sobriety will "stick" for them – in spite of the fact that they’ve relapsed again and again, they have no support framework, no knowledge of addiction or recovery.
This, in my opinion, is the height of foolishness. I would even call it hubris.
Then I have seen other people who have been on Sub for a while and have used that time to recover, to fix problems in their lives, to go to therapy, to reflect on what brought them to this point in their lives, etc. Usually, these folks are like: I think it’s time to start tapering with the eventual goal of getting off of Suboxone. Most of them have support in their lives, families, jobs, hobbies, other interests, school, something to live for. Many of them are doing step work or SMART or group therapy or one-on-one therapy or they post a lot here to work through their issues. They have gained some self knowledge and they think they are ready to try. Most of them also acknowledge the need for a back up plan should things go awry. They have gained a healthy respect for the power of addiction; they’ve learned from their mistakes and are trying to also learn from other’s mistakes.
I don’t think these people are foolish.
Not everyone falls into one of these two categories, of course. It’s more like a spectrum.
But overall I think the belief that we can someday live without suboxone is a good thing. That belief (or hope) can be very motivating to keep working hard on the recovery process. In a lot of ways, Suboxone works so damn well that it almost removes the impetus to keep working. You’re feeling better, you’re not craving, you’re pretty much normal (whatever that is)…so why go to group or meetings or counseling and drag out all the garbage into the light and have a nice painful look at it? Why employ "rigourous honesty" in your life when things seem like they’re going just fine anyway? Because hopefully you acknowledge that you have to do all of that work if you want to live Suboxone free someday.
Plus, there is so much we just don’t know about our brains or about addiction. It’s really only recently that doctors and researchers have been studying addiction from a disease framework. Prior to that, it was thought of as a moral problem or a lack of will or a character defect. Psychologists are testing new treatment modalities for dealing with addictive thought patterns and behavior, researchers are trying to develop new drugs. Other researchers are studying how addiction changes the brain and how the brain can heal. Who knows what breakthroughs are just around the corner?
Personally, I not only belive that I can live without Suboxone, but I also believe that someday I will be recovered from my addiction. It will be a thing in the past, not something I have to work to manage all the time.
When it came time for me to taper off Suboxone I was nervous. My doctor had only a few patients who had tapered off at that point, so we were in the learning process together. But when I expressed my doubts and fears to him, he reassured me that I was a great candidate for a successful taper and for success afterwards. He based his opinion on the fact that I’d been a very compliant patient, no positive drug screens for my whole treatment, that I’d been in therapy and was progressing, that I had a job and a firm plan to start school in a few months, a supportive family, that I’d addressed my triggers, my depression was being managed with medication, that I’d self-educated a lot during the process, and that my addiction had been relatively short.
In short, I really think that if you work hard on recovery (finding what really works for you as an individual) then at some point you begin to see that the idea of living life without an opiate replacement therapy starts to move from the realm of wishful thinking into the realm of rational possibility. And if that doesn’t happen, that’s fine too. I don’t think being Sub or methadone free has to be the ultimate goal for everyone. We’re all different.
